Pan-Anarchism Against the State, Pan-Secessionism Against the Empire

Main menu

In response to my statement “Is the Left salvagable? In and of itself, it does not appear to be,”, Jeremy raises some helpful points concerning the defintions of “left” and “right”:

That begs the question: what is this “Left”? If it is merely establishmentarianism with a cultural attachment to civil disobedience and protest, then one wonders whether the term â€œleftâ€ even applies. And so when you characterize the entire Left by its most objectionable qualities, it does give me pause. This is a very broad movement, with a wide variety of personalities.

And at least historically speaking, it seems like the Right has a much more basic need to align with established norms and power than the Left (whether we’re using it in the traditional anti-establishment sense or in the modern, pejorative sense you employ). I’m all for transcending left and right, but not as an alternative to performing a much needed analysis of the current political conditions.

I’m not accusing you of laziness, but merely suggesting that we make sure we qualify our generalizations of convenience as such. There’s no need to turn anybody off by attacking their label of preference, is there? I’ve always liked the tack you’ve seemed to take where you out-left the left, and out-right the right, demonstrating that they lack the conviction of their own principles. This is the way to get serious people to think seriously about their own motivations. We transcend the political poles by not by dispensing with them but by clarifying what they were originally intended to represent.

In strictly historical terms, virtually all people in modern societies (those of the West and others with similar politico-economic systems) are “leftists”. The “right”, properly understood in its historical context, was the ideology of defense of the monarchy, theocracy and aristocracy: “Throne and Altar”. Such sentiments are marginalized to say the least in liberal democracies, particularly the United States, which has no “throne and altar” tradition of its own. In other words, nearly all Americans and most Westerners in general start with the American or French Revolutions and move leftward from there, often considerably leftward. The closest thing the United States has to a “right-wing” is the so-called “religious right”, which is rather liberal by historical and even contemporary world standards. For instance, compare the “religious right” in America versus that in Saudi Arabia.

Most contemporary “right-wing” ideologies are historically on the Left. For instance, the godfather of modern philosophical “conservatism”, Edmund Burke, was a Whig who opposed British imperialism in Ireland, America and even India. American “conservatism” owes much to the classical liberalism of Locke and Adam Smith. The neoconservatives are an outgrowth of either Cold War liberalism or Trotskyism (depending on who you ask or which neoconservative you’re talking about). “Right-wing” libertarianism is really the radical classical liberalism of Herbert Spencer. American “right-wing populism” is distinctively rooted in the American republican tradition and owes very little to European royalism to say the least.

The mainstream Republican-oriented right is really a kind of “right-wing liberalism”, and therefore historically on the left, particularly since the neocon takeover of the right. What is now called “liberalism” in the US is really social democracy, and this is very much a centrist, if not reactionary, position in modern societies. American “liberalism” and European “social democracy” both maintain roughly the same levels of state intervention into the economy, though the European social welfare system is slightly more extensive (and mad possible only by the absence of a large military-industrial complex of the kind found in the USA). This system, whether European or American, is becoming an archaism, given the fiscal difficulties of modern welfare states.

The Left established itself as the party of the welfare state several generations ago. That’s why a distinction was initially made between the Old Left and the New Left. As we all know, the New Left abandoned class politics for a cultural politics that is now relatively status quo. At the same time, as all of this cultural “liberation” has occurred, the grip of political totalitarianism has tightened. The “Campus Progress” group I mentioned in the previous post seemed, from the contents of DeAnna’s review, to represent a wide cross-section of the Left, from the mainstream Democratic-oriented left to The Nation to the radical gay/trans,etc. left to the Weathermen-friendly. Yet I also noticed from the content of that article that most of the issues covered involved the same cultural politics that has defined the Left since the 60s.

The fundamental problem I see with the Left is that not only does it not offer anything new, but does not take many fundamentally anti-establishment positions. Of course, if we wish to define “left” in the historic sense of opposition to the status quo, then it would seem that most of the currents I previously identified as “revolutionary right” would also be the true “left”. This would certainly include the “left-libertarian” tendency that Jeremy leans towards, particularly considering that many liberals and leftists consider libertarianism to be just a variant of fascism. It would certainly include Dylan Waco and Daniel Bein’s “left-conservatism”. Of course, it would include “national-anarchism” or the “national-Maoism” of the Patriotic Workers’ Party.

The problem I see is that most orthodox leftists would consider all of these positions to be heresy. If the “left” is the orthodox left, then are all of these genuine anti-establishment positions on the left, or are they something entirely new, or are they just a “left to the left of the left”? I remember Sam Dolgoff saying once that “there’s the left and then there’s the further left and then the even further left, and then there’s an even further left and that left is me.”

Maybe that’s what we are.

I wrote in the “Liberty and Populism” article that the real struggle in modern times is a continuation of the historic battle between Marxism and Anarchism, with Marxism representing the status quo, whether right-wing liberalism/Trotskyism in the form of the Neocons, centrist totalitarian humanism of the US Democratic Party and the ruling classes of the European nations, the crypto-Stalinist cultural Marxism of the PC Left, the post-Maoism of the Chinese Communist Party, et.al.

I suppose the true left is whatever is resisting all of this. Are religious conservatives standing up to totalitarian humanism by opening home schools leftist or rightists? Are gun nut militias left or right? Are the cultural nationalists of Vlaams Bloc advocating an independent Flanders left or right?

The key is the breaking down of the Left/Right dichotomy with a real social alternative. We have to disrupt the labels and stereotypes held by the left, right and the media. This can only be done succesfully through frequent street actions and public involvement, on as many issues as is possible.

The strategy of tension and the disruption of dogmas through confusion.

This may well be correct, as it has been the National-Anarchists of Australia and New Zealand that have been achieving the highest level of recognition so far as “neither left nor right” movements go, and they have been doing it through street actions.

What the folks in Australia have shown is that even a small group that acts correctlyÂ can make something of an impact.Â A few years ago, I was having a conversation with a non-political acquaintance who told me that most leftist demonstrations he had observed appeared to be nothing more than chaotic, incoherent nonsense with a bunch of people swarming around and heading off into all sorts of different directions and often carrying signs (usually exhibiting the quality of what a third-grader with a box of crayons might produce) with slogans that were irrelevant to the purpose of the protest itself, for instance, “Save the Whales” signs being carried at an antiwar demo. I suggested in response that it would be more effective if a group of protestors simply marched in an organized way, carrying one big banner that was professionally done and that got the message across, with relevant literature available to give out to interested passersby.

From the photos of the New Right Aus/Nz actions, it appears that this is precisely what they do. Hence, their effectiveness. Also, notice that many of them are wearing black outfits and some are wearing masks (warning: wearing a mask in public is illegal in some US jurisdictions). This is good as it gives the marchers an appearance of seriousness that counterbalances the hippy-dippy, hysterical leftoid image of protest demonstrations.

So how would we do what our Australian/Nz friends are doing in the USA? NA23’s position of adopting such tactics towards many issues seems appropriate. No doubt different issues will be more significant in certain places and at certain times. On the secession question itself, image a demo similar to that depicted inÂ these NA-NR Aus/NZ photos outside of federal buildings in the capital cities of individual states demanding autonomy for regions and cities. Imagine such demos outside courthouses, jails and police stations demanding an end to the police state and the legal racket and prison-industrial complex built up around it. Imagine demos outside the headquarters ofÂ corporations, banks and businesses institutions involved inÂ nefarious activities. Imagine such a demo outside military recruitmentÂ centers handing outÂ antiwar literature making serious arguments as opposed to the usual “No Blood for Oil” leftoid crap.Â Â There could be similar actions against the eradication of low income housing, or against corporate welfare-funded development projects, and many other targets.

What would be particularly advantageous is if anti-System groups from opposite ends of the political or cultural spectrum could get in the habit of marching together against common enemies, not out of a sense of brotherly love, but out of recognition of common enemies. For instance, religious fundamentalists and environmentalists demanding an end to the feds’ harassment of pro-life, environmental or animal rights groups. Left-wing anarchists, black nationalists and white nationalists marching over, say, police brutality or housing issues (yes, such groups have actually engaged in joint actions in the past). Homosexuals and motorcycle gangs marching in protest over harassment of gay bars and biker bars by zoning and liquor licensing boards.

You get the idea.

Of course, any such actions have the potential for violence as well as legal complications. Go in with your eyes open. Consult with lawyers, train your people in how to deal with the police when arrested, do your homework, etc.

I don’t think the Left is so utterly irretrievable as you seem to, but a line must be drawn in the sand when it comes to revolutionary potential. Many on the Left (and Right, no doubt) will be found wanting.

And Mike offers a few important observations as well:

The analysis of today’s “liberalism” as totalitarianism is spot on. I would only add that there is a like tendency of thought from those on the â€œconservativeâ€ side of the political sphere that would likewise recognize no limitation or boundary to the use of state power to create their utopia.

Over at the Ancien’ Regimer page Taki’s Mag Kevin DeAnna has a piece that is highly relevant to this issue:

Most of DeAnna’s piece is an attack on the Left, but look at what he says about what passes for the mainstream “Right”:

In contrast, the majority of young CPAC attendees believed the purpose of political action was wearing a suit and preparing for a career. It is the difference between activists and politicos. Many Beltway conservatives are not activists and despise those who engage in protests or think of political alternatives beyond voting for Team Red. A mainstream conservative organization awarding young activists for direct action is simply unconceivable. Conservative organizations systematically funnel them into the dead end of Republican business as usual. Culture is largely ignored. The result is a youth “movement” that is actually less committed and effective than the older conservative grassroots. Campus Progress is building activists and the campus Right is building politicians and politicos.

In other words, the mainstream Republican-oriented “Right” is simply a movement of careerists and opportunists for whom political or party affiliation is simply seen as a career move. Well, duh, who would have ever thought that about Young Republican-types? This gets us to the difference between “conservatives” and a wide body of perspectives that might be called the “revolutionary Right”. What is a “conservative”? Roughly defined, a conservative is someone who wants to conserve a particular status quo (in the tradition of De Maistre) or is suspicious of change, or at least rapid or radical change (in the tradition of Burke). American conservatism also has a classical liberal strand to it, particularly the Lockean emphasis on property rights, though many right-wing histrionics over “property rights” amount to little more than an apology for the state-capitalist status quo (see Kevin Carson).

There is still another branch of “conservative” thinking, and one which I personally adhere to, that does not necessarily commit one to a particular ideological outlook in the political realm. This perspective draws on the realist tradition of Machiavelli and Hobbes and is found in modern thinkers like Carl Schmitt, Ernst Junger, Vilifredo Pareto,Â Georges Sorel, James Burnham, Lawrence Dennis, Robert Michaels and Gaetano Mosca. This point of view is elitist, anti-egalitarian, pessimist, anti-utopian, social Darwinian (or at least recognizes the inevitability of conflict), anti-humanist, cynical and espouses no small degree of moral skepticism. Unlike other brands of “conservatism”, this outlook does not commit one to the preservation of any particular status quo. One can be a “rightist” in the Machiavellian tradition, as I am, and also be an extreme revolutionary, as I also am.

The bottom line is that most of the American right-wing is a bunch of jingoistic flag-wavers or a bunch of middle-class people whining about taxes. Of course, we should want nothing to do with such people. Instead, we should seek to cultivate a “revolutionary right” that is far outside the mainstream “conservative” milieu. But what about the Left?

Back to Kevin DeAnna’s experience of attending the conference of some lefto-freakazoid outfit called “Campus Progress”. Here’s some of the better gems from DeAnna’s review:

I reported to registration to receive my official totebag, T shirt, and condoms. In the bustle, I was only able to grab three packs, but luckily, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and NARAL were handing out prophylactics in the display area (unfortunately labeled “Screw the Drug War”). The Campus Progress National Conference had begun.

This is genuinely sad, because the drug war is a serious issue, a foundation of the exponential expansion of the American police state over the past twenty or so years, and a means by which the state has tyrannized millions and brought about all sorts of social wreckage in the process. However, the approach of these folks is to make opposition to the drug war look like just another PC joke issue like demands to change the names of sports teams named after American Indian tribes or the right of men to use women’s restrooms in public buildings.

New Republic editor James Kirchick made an appearance during the panel on gay rights,”his Barack Obama-style flag pin being the only American flag at the entire conference. At CP, Kirchick was the official representative of right-wing extremism in that he argued that gays should become “normal” by gaining entry to bourgeoisie institutions such as marriage and the family and disowning terms like “queer.” This prompted cries of disapproval.

We know we’re in the Twilight Zone when the “conservative” representative at a leftist conference is a neocon homo who did a hit piece on Ron Paul for the center-left New Republic.

Richard Kim of The Nation argued the queer agenda should be about pan-sexual liberation, including liberalizing divorce laws and pushing for acceptance of alternative family models beyond squares like Kirchick and his hypothetical partner. A matronly trans-queer named Mason rumbled in a deep baritone that before openly becoming “trans,” he had “no identity.”

If the purpose of radicalism or activism or whatever we want to call it is simply to promote one big fuck-fest, wouldn’t it be easier to forget about politics altogether and just open an adult film company?

The Young Democratic Socialists handed out a flyer featuring Martin Luther King stating, “We are saying that something is wrong with capitalism, there must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism” which would shock my movement colleagues who tell me every January that MLK was a conservative Republican.

Compared to these folks, MLK was a conservative Republican.

The fact that an organization that has hosted senators, presidents, and the current Democratic nominee shares space with racists, communists, and homosexual activists that consider gay marriage to be reactionary is newsworthy.

Gay marriage is reactionary. The radicals of yesteryear would denounce marriage as a bourgeois institution and burn their marriage certificates, and this was true not only of free-lovers, free-thinkers, anarchists and bohemians but even many old guard socialists of the Fabian ilk. Nowadays, we have gays running out to join the bourgeoisie. Well, actually, we don’t. In Holland and other countries where gay marriage is recognized, only a small number of homosexuals have taken advantage of this “opportunity”.

As Campus Progress also recruits and advertises at the even more radical National Conference on Organized Resistance, which openly promotes force against military recruitment centers, the links between Democratic Party leaders and violent extremists goes well beyond Obama living in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayers. Campus Progress’s magazine’s feature on the “Lessons of the Weather Underground” is no aberration.

Well, now we might actually be getting somewhere. All Hail Violent Extremists!

It is to Campus Progress that U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison can speak, in his own words, “vanguard to vanguard.” The tendency of attendees to speak of overthrowing the “system” and in the next sentence talking about the upcoming Obama Administration is exactly how activists should think. While participating in Democratic campaigns, Campus Progress and the activists that work with it are building a force independent of partisan efforts, but not irrelevant to it. They understand that the role of activists is to push politicians towards an independently defined agenda rather than serving as cannon fodder.

Hence, a common concern of many activists was how to avoid being “co-opted” by the Democratic establishment, even if that establishment is headed by the most liberal candidate in American history. Similarly, a comment during the civil rights panel about how any movement needs a “militant resistance” was met not with nervous glances but agreement to what all perceived to be an obvious point.

This is an illustration of the split between mainstream liberal totalitarian humanism and the more hard-core PC cultural Marxist Left. I don’t know that there are any significant doctrinal differences, except maybe on a few economic points, e.g., welfare-capitalism vs outright socialism/Marxism. It’s basically the same as the historic divisions between Social Democrats and Commies. How fast do we want to go, and all that.

Is the Left salvagable? In and of itself, it does not appear to be. Instead, it appears to be more along the lines of a demented cult whose counterparts on the Right might be folks like the followers of Rev. John Hagee. But before I get too self-righteous about it all, I should point out that as a pan-secessionist I would welcome the development of both “Campus Progress” lefto-freakazoid secession movements as well as John Hagee Fan Club secession movements. Also, I was an evangelical Christian with views not unlike Hagee’s until I was a teenager and I also participated extensively in lefto-freakazoid activities not unlike these “Campus Progress” loons for a few years when I was in my early twenties.

I basically see both “movement conservatism” and lefto-freakazoidism as useful transitional phases for superior people who will eventually move on to something more concrete. For instance, some of the better people in the paleo milieu – Tom Woods, James Wilson, Joe Sobran – came out of “the conservative movement” (forgive them, for they knew not what they were doing). And many in the “beyond left and right” milieu came out of the Left-myself, Ean Frick and a number of other folks around Attack the System. I think we should look at both movements – conservatism and leftism – as sinking ships that may contain rare individuals actually worthy of being thrown a life preserver or picked up by a rescue boat. Let the rest of them drown.

What does it mean when the Right is becoming more revolutionary minded than the Left? Nowadays, there are “left-conservatives”, “left-libertarians”, “left-secessionists”, “conservative revolutionaries”, “left-nationalists”, “national-syndicalists”, “national-anarchists”, “national-bolsheviks”, “national-maoists”, “left-populists”, “left-decentralists”, “national-communists” and lots of other labels that defy the left/right stereotype. What does is mean that the official Left has become a haven of moribund predictability regurgitating the most superficial cliches’?

What if a revolutionary Right emerged that was able to outmaneuver the totalitarian humanists of the Left by maintaining a more revolutionary position, absorbing untapped social energies ignored by the Left, undercutting the Left’s support base, and operating within a general populist framework?

There are a wide variety of lumpen elements and outgroups that are ignored or despised by the Left, despite the leftoids claim to be the champion of the oppressed and downtrodden? What about the handicapped, the mentally ill, students, youth, prostitutes and other sex workers, prisoners, prisoner’s rights activists, advocates for the rights of the criminally accused, the homeless and homeless activists, anti-police activists, advocates of alternative medicine, drug users, the families of drug war prisoners, immigrants, lumpen economic elements (jitney cab drivers, peddlers, street vendors), gang members and many others too numerous to name?

Who is it that stands for the workers and the poor? Is it the Left with its commitment to New Class managerial bureaucratic welfarism? Who stands for the people of rural American farming communities? Is is the cosmopolitan Left with its hostility to all things traditional? Who stands for the environment? Is it the middle class do-gooders of the Sierra Club? Or is it the ecological revolutionaries of the Earth Liberation Front?

What kind of economic outlook is more revolutionary? A Left offering more welfare statism or a revolutionary Right offering a negative income tax that by passes the bureaucratic middlemen of the welfare state, cutting taxes and regulation from the bottom up and eliminating corporate, bank and military welfare from the top down, and developing worker cooperatives, mutual banks, community development corporations, land trusts, kibbutzim and anarcho-syndicalist unions.

In the area of race relations, which is more revolutionary? More affirmative action, welfare, coercive intergrationism and multiculturalist propaganda? Or a system of reparations to America’s minority nationalities, political autonomy, cultural self-determination, economic development and self-sufficiency?

In foreign policy, what is more radical? “Human rights internationalism” or shutting down the American empire, dismantling the standing army and replacing the military-industrial complex with a decentralized militia confederation?

In criminal law, who has the more radical position? Liberals advocating civilian review boards and drug courts or revolutionaries favoring shutting down the police state and prison-industrial complex altogether along comprehensive prisoner amnesty?

As we build a movement towards such ends, look for the Left to attempt to obstruct our efforts at every turn.

The primary ideological war of the future will not be between the left and right, or between socialism and capitalism, or even between nationalism and imperialism. The struggle will be between anti-universalism and decentralism on one end and totalitarian humanism on the other.

I first became aware of this sometime during the mid-1990s when I was something of an oddity; a leftwing anarchist participating in the right-wing patriot/militia/survivalist movement. After observing the police state atrocities at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and the similarities of these to prior Cointelpro repression against the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement, and noticing the insufficient response of the Left on these matters, I started to understand the need to move past the conventional left/right political model. I was pleased to find many on the far right with many of the same ideas and interests as myself, particularly opposition to the US empire, the corporate ruling class, the federal Leviathan, the internal police/surveillance state and much else. For the first time, I came across contemporary groups advocating secession from the United States. The first of these was the Republic of Texas.

It occurred to me that I had finally found the means of overthrowing the US ruling class,i.e., a tactical alliance of decentralists from the far right (like my militia comrades) and from the far left (like revolutionary anarchists). Observing such tendencies on the far right as the sovereigns, common law courts, militias, neo-secessionists, the land rights movement and county autonomy, and noticing the similarities of these with libertarian municipalism, anarcho-syndicalism, individualist-anarchism, and green decentralism, it seemed like a perfect solution: an alliance of left and right against the ruling class middle. Sure, there were some serious cultural differences, but decentralism seemed to be the solution to all that. Liberal communities like big cities, metro areas, suburbs and culturally mixed neighborhoods would govern themselves according to liberal values while conservative communities like rural counties, small towns, sparsely populated regions and culturally homogenous enclaves would govern themselves according to conservative values. And we would all be free of the superstate that is oppressing us all.

In the ten years I have advocated such an approach, interest in this idea has grown considerably. Dozens of secession groups of varying sizes have emerged in North America and some of these have been featured in major national media outlets. The relative popularity of a maverick presidential candidate like Ron Paul would have been unthinkable ten years ago. At various points, hundreds of US localities and a few states have issued resolutions condemning such excesses as the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. A fairly large movement against the institutions of international capitalism such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank emerged for a time.

Along the way, I have noticed another trend that is less admirable and one that I have written extensively about. I call this trend “totalitarian humanism”. I first started noticing this when I would propose the aforementioned left/right decentralist alliance in some leftist circles. “But they’re anti-abortion, they’re homophobes, they’re racists, they’re nationalists, they go to church, they eat meat and chew tobacco and fuck in the missionary position….” would be theÂ increasingly familiar response. Me: “Yeah, so what, you don’t have to associate with them, you don’t have to live among them and in a decentralist system you don’t even have to share a political roof with them….”

What I found absolutely astounding was the inability of some leftoids to even understand my position. It’s not that they could follow my arguments but simply disagreed. Instead, what I was talking about-a system of decentralized anti-universalism where incompatible cultural groups simply separate themselves from one another-was utterly incomprehensible to them, as though I was trying to explain advanced theoretical physics or infinitesimal calculus to them. A real turning point came with the emergence of an anarchist tendency called “national-anarchism” which basically advocates the formation of ethnically homogenous village communities for the sake of preserving indigenous European racial, ethnic and cultural identity in the face of the increasingly global uniformity that has accompanied the global economy and Americanization of the world. It seemed harmless enough to me, and very similar to what many non-European indigenous peoples’ and traditional religious groups (like the Amish) have advocated in the past.

But the reaction to the “national-anarchists” among many leftists and left-anarchists was similar to what one might expect from a little girl when confronted with a spider or snake. Absolute, sheer hysteria. Â I had previously become aware of the therapeutic state through my studies of the ideological underpinnings of the War on Drugs, whereby the imprisoning of millions of people and the creation of a police state in the name of “public health” is considered a legitimate and appropriate governmental activity. The writings of Dr. Thomas Szasz were quite beneficial to me in this regard.

I started noticing a similar phenomenon concerning such matters as race, gender, religion, sexuality and other things. I recall a conversation with a devout liberal who expressed his “outrage” at having attended a Muslim mosque and noticing the gender-segregated seating arrangement. Me: “It’s their mosque, for God’s sake, if you don’t like it, don’t go in there…” The same argument I have made for years to social conservatives who are offended by adult entertainment facilities.

What I eventually came to realize is that many liberals and leftoids simply cannot stand the idea that someone, somewhere, sometime may be practicing “un-liberalism”. For instance, a small private school teaching creationism, a private religious community or house of worship practicing “sexism” or “homophobia”, an isolated village practicing racial/ethnic exclusivity, a single individual hidden away in a broom closet silent thinking politically incorrect thoughts to himself.

What is called “liberalism” in modern times is really totalitarian humanism (some have also called it cultural Marxism). It is a totalitarian movement every bit as much as the totalitarian movements of the 20th century: communism, fascism and national socialism.Â It aims to regulate every aspect of life down to the most minute detail including day to day personal habits like diet, language, smoking, family relations, recreational activities and much else. It is 1984, Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange all rolled into one.

Totalitarian humanism is the ideology of the ruling classes of the Western nations.Â This ideology has formed the basis of a new Inquisition. Even those with status and positions of high esteem are vulnerable. Notice the fates of Dr. James Watson or Harvard’s Lawrence Summers. Even infant children are not immune:

Politically disapproved speech can now land you in jail in many “democratic” countries, in spite of their much-flaunted phony “tolerance”, just as it could in many previously existing communist, fascist or theocratic regimes. Totalitarian Humanism is Robespierre, Mussolini and Mao all over again.

Resistance to this villainy is the defense of liberty andÂ civilization. No compromises or concessions should be made to these cretinous elements.Â The governments that these elements now control must ultimately be eradicated. The development of secession movements by regions, communities, towns, cities or by non-territorial groups wishing to defend themselves against increasing attacks by the state should be given every possible means of support and encouragement. All who would resist the forces of totalitarian humanism should be welcomed into our resistance forces, whether they be adherents of some eccentric religious doctrine, some seemingly perverse sexuality, racial separatists, environmental radicalsÂ or simply persons with more conventional political views who see danger ahead.

When the Second Vermont Republic, through its sister organization the Middlebury Institute, first began reaching out to other independence movements in November 2006, four such groups were at the top of our priority list. They included the Alaskan Independence Party, the Hawaiian independence movement, the New Hampshire Free State Project, and the League of the South.

Within three months after the First North American Secessionist Convention met in Burlington, Vermont, the well-financed race-baiting Southern Poverty Law Center opened fire on SVR and the Middlebury Institute accusing us of racism for having attended a meeting which included four LOS members as well as representatives from fifteen other secessionist organizations representing eighteen states.

First thought: The SPLC is a scam organization that should not be taken seriously. They are not merely do-gooder anti-racism activists. They are, as one of Morris Dees’ former law partners says, “the Tammy Faye Bakker of civil rights.” Further, groups like the SPLC epitomize the modern ruling class ideology of totalitarian humanism. They will oppose secession or decentralization of any kind, no matter what, as this is incompatible with their goal of a global totalitarian order organized as a caste system with group privilege assigned according to victimological status:

In other words, the SPLC and others of their ilk are our mortal enemies, and should be given no recognition whatsoever. To recognize them, to attempt to rebut or accommodate them, is to grant them legitimacy. We should treat them as we would treat an enemy army during wartime.

Naylor discusses the difficulties an alliance with the League of the South poses for his own movement:

The knee-jerk response of most Americans to secession is typically, “We’ve been there, done that, and it didn’t work out very well.” Secession always brings to mind images of the Civil War, slavery, racism, violence, and preservation of the Southern way of life. Secession is often equated with Southern, redneck, Christian fundamentalist racism. Anyone who is a secessionist is considered a likely racist, but a Southern secessionist is a racist a priori. Since the LOS is a Southern secessionist group, it’s hardly surprising that there is a widespread perception that it is racist.

To achieve its twofold objectives of Vermont independence and the peaceful dissolution of the American Empire, SVR needs all the help it can get from other independence movements. But so long as the albatross of racism hangs around its neck, the LOS can never be a truly effective partner for SVR. SVR, on the other hand, risks being tainted by the scourge of racism simply by associating with the LOS.

And offers this assessment of the state of race relations in America vis-a-vis the Empire:

Starting with the election of President Richard Nixon in 1968 and continuing through the 2000 election of George W. Bush, racism, particularly in the South, did pay for the Republican Party. Its so called Southern strategy was thoroughly grounded in racism. But things began to change when President Bush named Colin Powell and then Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State. This sent a very clear signal to white racists everywhere that racism was no longer part of the national agenda. When Bill Clinton tried to play the racial card against Barack Obama in South Carolina and elsewhere, he soon learned the hard way, that racism doesn’t pay anymore. White South Carolina Democrats got the message and voted for Obama.

When Bush II was elected in 2000, the favorite scapegoats of many white, conservative Southerners were blacks, gays, lesbians, abortionists, and so-called secular humanists. Tolerance was not the name of the game. But eight years of Bush II have convinced many Southerners that the real enemy of the South is the corrupt, unsustainable, ungovernable, unfixable American Empire. The white, conservative social agenda has been trumped by the Empire.

To bring down the Empire peacefully will require the support of all Southerners, not just like-thinking, white Southerners. The vision of a free and independent South can never become a reality unless all Southerners participate. Even the hint of racism has the potential to derail the entire independence movement.

Starting with the election of President Richard Nixon in 1968 and continuing through the 2000 election of George W. Bush, racism, particularly in the South, did pay for the Republican Party. Its so called Southern strategy was thoroughly grounded in racism. But things began to change when President Bush named Colin Powell and then Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State. This sent a very clear signal to white racists everywhere that racism was no longer part of the national agenda. When Bill Clinton tried to play the racial card against Barack Obama in South Carolina and elsewhere, he soon learned the hard way, that racism doesnâ€™t pay anymore. White South Carolina Democrats got the message and voted for Obama.

When Bush II was elected in 2000, the favorite scapegoats of many white, conservative Southerners were blacks, gays, lesbians, abortionists, and so-called secular humanists. Tolerance was not the name of the game. But eight years of Bush II have convinced many Southerners that the real enemy of the South is the corrupt, unsustainable, ungovernable, unfixable American Empire. The white, conservative social agenda has been trumped by the Empire.

To bring down the Empire peacefully will require the support of all Southerners, not just like-thinking, white Southerners. The vision of a free and independent South can never become a reality unless all Southerners participate. Even the hint of racism has the potential to derail the entire independence movement.

The American South is as culturally and ethnically diverse as other regions. It has a large black population, a rapidly growing Hispanic population, and its metropolitan areas exhibit the same cosmopolitanism common to big cities in general. The South also has plenty of transplanted Northerners with “liberal” social or political views. This situation likely make a unified Southern secession under neo-confederate ideology or symbolism unlikely. A more viable approach would be to dissolve the southern states into regional federations of communities organized along cultural, ideological, political, economic, racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic or sexual lines. Naylor continues with some suggestions of his own:

1. Renounce Racism

The leaders of the League should draft a statement which takes the form of the unconditional denunciation of all forms of racism. This statement should be presented to LOS members at their next convention for ratification.

A problem here is defining “racism” in the first place. As anti-racism has become more and more powerful, “racism” continues to be defined in ever more extravagant and implausible ways. Is merely opposing affirmative action “racist”? Is opposing a completely open borders immigration policy “racist”? Is refusing to take the Al Sharpton line on controversial court cases like that of the Jena 6 “racist”? Once again, the enemies of secession or decentralism will be never placated no matter how “anti-racist” a particular secession movement may be.

Perhaps a more direct approach would be for the League to issue a statement indicating precisely what kind of racial policies they would prefer an independent South to have. Do they wish to keep present day antidiscrimination laws or even affirmative action? Do they favor slavery reparations? Or do they wish to reinstate slavery or Jim Crow? Do they favor a regime of meritocratic libertarian individualism? Do they favor a regime that is race neutral in the political and legal sense but recognizes the right of private self-segregation?

2. Recruit Black Members

LOS leaders should embark on a strategy to recruit African American members into the LOS. This will be a tough sell, because Southern blacks will be understandably suspicious of the motives of a formerly lily-white secession organization. It will most likely be necessary to offer scholarships or discounted memberships to attract blacks. The importance of this step cannot possibly be overemphasized.

Bad idea. Most blacks who are politically motivated prefer to have their own organizations for themselves. If even the most fanatically anti-racist leftist groups are constantly lamenting the lack of interest in their movement by racial minorities, then it’s unlikely a Southern secessionist movement will do any better. Blacks will regard such efforts as patronizing acts of pandering. Blacks who actually accepted such offers would feel like tokens. Others, black, white, left and right, would see such efforts as groveling on the part of the League, creating a sense of smug satisfaction on the part of the likes of the SPLC.

A better idea would be for the League to simply state its preferred racial policies, in detail, and then if this is shown to be incompatible with the interests of others in the South (blacks, Hispanics, liberals, secularists, gays, et al.) starting seeking out dialogue with organizations that actually represent these culturally incompatible groups for the purpose of achieving mutual and equitable separation. The League has a variety of positions it could take. They could position themselves as “white nationalists” along the lines of Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance and explicitly advocate decentralization or voluntary self-segregation along racial lines. They could be “southern nationalists” advocating independence for the entire South with a decentralized governmental system along the lines of the Swiss cantons as a means of accommodating the cultural and racial differences of the people of the South. They could be Christian conservatives along the lines of the Christian Exodus Project favoring non-racial but socially and politically conservative government for the Southern states after achieving independence. Again, I think this latter approach will work only if some means of accommodating non-Christians or non-conservatives is established (for instance, making the large metro areas into independent “liberal” city-states a la Monaco or Singapore).

3. Black Speakers

One way to attract black members is to invite black speakers to participate in local LOS meetings as well as the annual convention. A wide variety of black speakers should be considered. For example, Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University is a black, conservative economist who favors secession. One might also invite left-wing, black political leaders who oppose secession.

Why not invite black nationalists who also support decentralization, secession or separatism? For instance, why not invite representatives of the Nation of Islam, New Black Panthers, Pan-African International Movement, All-African Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, Peoples’ Democratic Uhuru Movement,Â or the Republic of New Afrika? How about inviting similar tendencies from the American Indian Movement, Aztlan Nation or decentralists from the Left?

4. Civil War

Having attended two of the LOS annual conventions, I am not sure that all LOS members realize that the Civil War ended in 1865. Much of the literature on sale at LOS conventions highlights Confederate symbolism, the flag in particular. Whether justifiably or not, most Southern blacks view the Confederate flag as an overt racist symbol aimed at rubbing salt in their 400-year wounds. If the LOS wants to be an effective secession organization, then the Confederate flag has got to go! And in a similar vein, nothing enrages Southern blacks more than the singing of “Dixie.”

Bad idea. Every group has the right to recognize and appreciate its history and heritage and I suspect this is a non-negotiable issue for a group like the League. Also, Civil War revisionism is important to the advancement of the secessionist cause in the intellectual arena, e.g., Tom DiLorenzo’s debunking of many of the Lincoln myths.

5. Southern Unity

Ironically, to achieve our common objective of disuniting the states of America, I am calling for Southern unity. And I am proposing that there is no organization better qualified to lead the way than the League of the South.

In the divisive 1860s the Confederate states tried unsuccessfully to lead our nation into disunion. After military defeat, occupation, and Reconstruction, they were dragged kicking and screaming back into the Union. I believe that it is high time the South and the rest of the nation reconsidered dissolution. The League of the South is in a unique position to help lead the South out of the Union and the nation into disunion.

May God bless the untied states of America.

Of course.

This brings us to an issue that will eventually have to be addressed if any movement to dissolve the U.S. empire is to be viable. The dissolution of the empire will necessarily have to include some kind of settlement to America’s historic racial divide. Many minorities have gotten used to looking to the federal government as the protector of civil rights, and they’re not going to give that up without compensation. Yet, minority support is essential to dissolving the empire, giving their prominence among the ranks of the lower socio-economic levels that would out of necessity be a primary class basis of an anti-empire movement. This is why I’m inclined towards the proposals outlined by the Americans for Self-Determination:

The gist of the ASD Plan is that reparations would be used for the cultivation and economic development of politically autonomous black states in exchange for the abolition of compensatory preferences like affirmative action and restoration of the right of private discrimination along ethnic or racial lines. I would add to this legal amnesty for the huge numbers of blacks currently being held in American penal institutions. The sum total of these ideas amounts to a position on race relations far more “liberal” than what most mainstream liberals and even many radical leftists advocate. Blacks gain political and cultural sovereignty, economic reparations and a chance for economic self-determination and self-sufficiency, and, I would add, legal amnesty. Meanwhile, the reverse discrimination of compensatory preferences would be eliminated and those whites who prefer a racially or ethnically homogenous environment for themselves would be able to obtain it.

Rest assured, conventional “liberals” and professional “anti-racists” will oppose such a plan. Their ambition is a totalitarian humanist multicultural state, not self-determination for peoples’. They are our enemies in a battle to the death.

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. …
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure.”

I’m particularly bothered by these so-called “anarcho”-nationalists that are trying to take advantage of the increase in interest in anarchism. The leaders of this fake “anarchism” are Keith Preston (USA), Troy Southgate (UK), Richard Hunt (UK), Peter Topfer (Germany), Hans Cany (France), and Flavio Goncalves (Portugal). What is worrying is that Keith Preston at least is trying to give his ideas legitimacy by hooking up to the tendency to bridge the gap between the libertarian “right” and “left” (as Kevin Carson is trying to do). It’s all very fishy. Websites trying to link Bakunin and Julius Evola, Proudhon and Alain de Benoist, Kropotkin and Otto Strasser. Strange shit.

Any thoughts? It seems to have grown out of hippy-dippy “anarchism”, at least in the UK – Richard Hunt, Southgate’s comrade-in-arms, was part of that “Green Anarchist” scene. But elsewhere…? Where the hell does this crap come from?

So I am the leader of “anarcho-fascism in the USA”? Hmm. I’m actually more “liberal” on most social/cultural questions than most liberals. For instance, I’m pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, anti-death penalty (though not for the usual reasons), pro-drug legalization, pro-gay rights, pro-sex worker rights, pro-prison abolition, pro-homeless, pro-disabled peoples’ rights, pro-indigenous peoples’ rights, pro-rights of the mentally ill, anti-drinking age, anti-compulsory schooling, anti-censorship and I’d put more strident limits on the powers of the police than the ACLU would. I’m also interested in anarcho-syndicalist or “libertarian socialist” economics. This is far more left than most liberals and even many hard leftists. I’m not a carte blanche liberal. For instance, I agree with the far right on the right to bear arms. I’m more moderate on immigration and I despise political correctness. Like many conservatives, libertarians and other right-wingers who profess opposition to statism, I oppose the Federal Reserve, the United Nations, income taxes, the public school system, welfare, affirmative action, antidiscrimination laws, the Environmental Protection Agency, “hate crimes” (really thought crimes) legislation, public housing, campus speech codes, zoning ordinances, social security, and many other forms of statism and authoritarianism typically championed by “the Left.”

Of course, what really seems to set these Totalitarian Humanist types off the most is my upholding the rights of free speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association (or not to associate). This is why, unlike anarchists of the leftoid persuasion, I welcome national-anarchists, third-positionists, members of the European New Right, conservative Christians, black separatists, white separatists, Jewish separatists, survivalists, paleoconservatives, “right-wing” libertarians, and other decentralists or anti-statists with non-leftist cultural views into the ranks of the anti-System movement.

If this doesn’t jibe with these self-styled “anti-fascist” or “anti-racist” cretins, then too damn bad. As Aidan Rankin has observed, so-called “anti-fascism” is merely a new kind of fascism with a leftist outward appearance. It will be interesting to observe how these leftoid-totalitarian humanist-antifascist creatures evolve in the future. As Cultural Marxism becomes ever more deeply entrenched and absorbed by the establishment, these gutter creeps are likely to abandon their pretended anti-establishment and anti-American stances, and simply become jingoists, upholding the police state and imperialist war in the name of waging the holy jihad against racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, speciesism, weightism, lookism, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah, fart, fart, fart…

They certainly have a prototype in the Commies/Trots-turned-Know Nothings in the Neocons.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. â€” That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, â€” That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. â€” Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. â€” And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

An interesting new book by Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, explains how Americans are self-separating along cultural, political, religious, ethnic and racial lines. Here’s how the book is described:

This is the untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided.America may be more diverse than ever coast to coast, but the places where we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think, and vote like we do. This social transformation didn’t happen by accident. We’ve built a country where we can all choose the neighborhood and church and news show â€” most compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this way-of-life segregation. Our country has become so polarized, so ideologically inbred, that people don’t know and can’t understand those who live just a few miles away. The reason for this situation, and the dire implications for our country, is the subject of this ground-breaking work.

In 2004, journalist Bill Bishop made national news in a series of articles when he first described “the big sort.” Armed with original and startling demographic data, he showed how Americans have been sorting themselves over the past three decades into homogeneous communities â€” not at the regional level, or the red-state/blue-state level, but at the micro level of city and neighborhood. In The Big Sort Bishop deepens his analysis in a brilliantly reported book that makes its case from the ground up, starting with stories about how we live today, and then drawing on history, economics, and our changing political landscape to create one of the most compelling big-picture accounts of America in recent memory.

The Big Sort will draw comparisons to Robert Putam’s Bowling Alone and Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class and will redefine the way Americans think about themselves for decades to come.

Â

What does this mean for the pan-secessionist cause? It means it’s already happening and that secession may well happen sooner and be less messy than some would expect. What all of these de facto separatists are doing is creating the framework for the anarchies, mini-republics, micro-nations and intentional communities that will be the political framework of a future North America.Â Consider some of the political arrangements that have existed in the past. Did you know how many anarchist political systems there have actually been?

-There are 36,000 paramilitary police raids on private homes in the United States on an annual basis.

-The United States has five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners.

-One in thirty-one American adults is in prison, on probation or on parole.

Are Americans any more inherently inclined towards criminality than any other national grouping? Probably not. Instead, the problem is one of gross overcriminalization. The so-called War on Drugs is the most well-known example of this, but there are many others including the use of prisons to warehouse the mentally ill or the homeless and the modern debtor’s prison system of incarceration for economic “crimes” like bad checks, non-payment of child support (even when there is no means of payment), fines, tax code violations, traffic “offenses”, as well as a penal code that turns ordinary, single illegal acts into an infinite multitude of felonies. As Peter Brimelow explains:

“In the old days punishments were harsh, but they were not arbitrary. You could be hanged for stealing a sheep, but you would not also be charged with conspiracy to commit sheep stealing, willful evasion of taxes on stolen sheep and diminishing the civil rights of the sheep owner. Attacks on property? Asset forfeiture, aimed at drug dealers when radically extended by Congress in 1984 but now covering 140 other offenses, allows seizure on “probable cause” – i.e., at the discretion of police and prosecutors. Proceeds go to the seizing agency, creating a corrupting motive.”

Indeed, mass incarceration has become a big business for lawyers, judges, police, prison officials, private prison construction and management companies, prison guards unions, and a wide assortment of public sector and private sector interests engaged in profiteering from this overcriminalization system.

Rather than trying to counter this with all sorts of do-gooder politicking, it might be better to simply shut the whole thing down using action as radical as necessary. Ideally, a National Resistance Militia should form, committed only to the single issue of completely exterminating the police state-prison industrial complex-legal racket, and drawing from the ranks of anyone committed to such a goal. Theoretically, this could include conservative patriots, leftwing radicals,Â black separatists, white separatists, radical environmentalists, Christians, survivalists, anarchists, gun nuts, gangbangers and anyone else who recognizes the common enemy. Such a national resistance militia would then drive the police away on a locality by locality basis (remember the disappearing acts pulled by the Los Angeles and New Orleans police during the Rodney King riots in ’92 and Hurricane Katrina in ’05?). Such a militia would then provide assistance to communities and neighborhoods in setting up genuine citizen patrol systems to deter genuine crimes (robbery, burglary, mugging). Likewise a new legal system will be necessary. The actor Omar Sharif described how things work in Arab countries:

We, the Arabs… We are not like [regular countries],” he said, explaining why he warned Bush against encouraging democracy in Iraq. “We are sects. This is how we have always been.”

“People like me prefer to go to the neighborhood sheik. I like going to him, and he resolves all the problems. If someone stole from you, you take him to the neighborhood sheik, and you say, ‘This man stole from me.’ The sheik says to him, ‘Return the money, or never come back to the neighborhood.'”

For more serious crimes, there might need to be a system of common law courts with formalized rules of evidence, procedural rights for the accused, maximum penalties that can be imposed and a system of appeal. What about the huge American prison population? We might look no further than the general amnesty declared by Saddam Hussein prior to the beginning of the current war in Iraq in 2003:

Iraqi television has been showing pictures of joyful prisoners leaving jail, shortly after the authorities announced an unprecedented general amnesty.

A nationally televised statement from the Revolution Command Council, read by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, said the “full and complete and final amnesty” applied to “any Iraqi imprisoned or arrested for political or any other reason”.

The amnesty was intended to thank the Iraqi people for their “unanimity” in last week’s presidential referendum, the statement said.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein won 100% support in the poll, in which he was the only candidate.

The amnesty also included “prisoners, detainees and fugitives… including those under sentence of death, inside or outside Iraq,” the statement said.

The exception, the statement said, was for murderers, who would be released only with the consent of the victims’ families.

Ever wonder why anti-System movements never get any further than they do in spite of near universal disdain for the American government and ruling class?

One obvious problem is that while most people agree they don’t like the status quo, they disagree wildly on WHY they don’t like the status quo. Either the System is too racist, or it’s not racist enough, or its too pro-gay, or not anti-gay enough, or too socialistic, or too capitalistic, or too decadent, immoral, hedonistic or libertine, or too puritanical, repressive, moralistic or conservative. Either the System does too much to protect the environment, or not enough, or spends too much money on education and welfare or not enough.

Would not the solution be to have different systems for different kinds of people with different values? Why should there be only one system for 300 million people? Why shouldn’t people who dislike one another and can’t get along simply separate themselves from one another? No doubt there is a practically unlimited number of reasons why someone might want out of the System. These could include everything from anti-zoning activists who wish to create a separate county or municipality without zoning ordinancesÂ to UFO believers who think the federal government has fallen under the influence of extraterrestrials.

“In a genuinely free society, citizens would enjoy the unqualified liberty to acquire weapons of any sort, in any quantity they pleased, for the specific purpose of being able to out-gun the government and its agents when such action would be justified.

Most Americans, as ignorant of our heritage of principled insurrection as they are well-versed in the ephemera of degenerate pop culture, would find such sentiments abhorrent. In that fact we see that â€“ whatever may be the status of our current “right” to keep and bear arms â€“ the intellectual and psychological disarmament of our population is nearly complete.” -William Norman Grigg

Among some secessionists, there is a debate going on as to whether secessionist groups should collaborate with other groups whose political ideology or cultural values are the opposite of their own. This is particularly common to secessionists with “liberal” or left-wing values and who look askance at those secessionists with less than liberal views on matters like religion, gay rights, feminism, race, immigration, abortion and a number of other things.

Well, isn’t the whole point of secession to provide a framework where people with conflicting values can “do their own thing” without being bothered by those with other values? And if you strongly object to someone else’s values, shouldn’t you want to be separate from them? If their values are of the kind that you find particularly noxious, isn’t it that much more important that they separate themselves from others?

A pan-secessionist movement will naturally attract people from across the cultural and ideological spectrum, ranging from “moderates” who simply think the present system has gone too far to “extremists” espousing views that many would find rather bizarre. This is how it should be. Differences of opinion over moral philosophy, cultural norms, political ideology, theology and the like are matters for different secessionist groups to debate internally. The only time this should be an issue is when more than one group claims a particular territory. For instance, both black nationalists and southern nationalists claim parts of the South. Realistically speaking, some kind of compromise resulting in mutual autonomy will have to be worked out. Likewise with the Southwest, where multiple groups also claim territorial rights. Large cities, which tend to be quite diverse, raise still other issues.

Many of the individual American states are in fact larger than many other nations. Rougly one half of the territory of the USA is controlled by governments, federal, state or local. That’s a lot of turf that can be parceled out for the sake of forming new nations and intentional communities. Just as a pan-secessionist movement will need its moderates, as they will be the ones who give the indication that one can be a secessionist without being particularly outside the mainstream culturally, so will it need its extremists, because they are the ones who will be most likely to stand their ground and fight.

“[W]hen the Justice Department prosecutes an organized crime family,
I’m not sure which side to root for. Violent urban gangs are scary
things. So are police forces who face no competition in the market for
extortion. I don’t know which is worse….The best argument I’ve ever
seen against gun control was on a bumper sticker that said “When guns
are outlawed, only the police will have guns.” (p. 34)

The former Assistant District Attorney for Los Angeles who put Charles Manson and his “Family” behind bars for life calls for George W. Bush to be prosecuted for murder. According to Vincent Bugliosi’s argument, any prosecutor in any district anywhere in the U.S.Â where a localÂ member of the armed forces has been killed inÂ Iraq has legal grounds for bringing murder charges against Bush. It’sÂ doubtful there are very many local prosecutors who are principled enough to take up this cause,Â butÂ there’s probably plenty who would loveÂ the publicity, soÂ c’mon, guys, whatcha waiting for?

Recently, on another blog, a somewhat well-known figure in the “left-libertarian” milieu attacked the circle around the Ludwig von Mises Institute for their association with so-called “neo-Confederates”. I don’t like to attack other radicals/libertarians/anarchists publicly unless they attack me first (like ChuckO Munson and Daniel Owen), so I’m not going to name any names, but these comments raise some important questions.

“You’re right, neo-confederates don’t have to be racists. They just have to be tribalists who care a great deal about their blood-and-soil attachment to a particular mythologised collective of molding ancestors. And they have to be specifically attached to a cultural nationalism which happens to be a particularly patriarchal and conservative, order-and-rank closed society. And in order to do that, they have to hop evasive rings around the hideous and widely publicised historical consequences of that kind of society.”

Most human beings are tribalists of some sort, including cultural leftists. The specific sets of rituals and taboos may be different, but the capacity for herdthink, groupthink and intolerance of the Other is the same. For instance, liberals and leftists frequently speak of poor whites in the same manner as racists speak of blacks. And what is so wrong with an attachment to “blood and soil”? As opposed to what? Impersonal and remote abstractions like “humanity”, “the world”, “society”, etc.? How are these any more legitimate than “blood and soil”? As for patriarchy, ever spent any time around urban black males, Latino, Arab, or Asian immigrants? The average Joe White Guy is a committed feminist compared to some of these. And what about the “hideous historical consequences” of Lincoln’s war to “save the Union”? Six hundred thousand or so dead, for starters? The end of the federal republic in favor of a centralized nationalist regime, followed by the growth of the American empire, US entry into WW2, Versailles, Nazism, WW2, the Holocaust, the Stalinist seizure of Eastern Europe, the Cold War, the arms race, present day American foreign policy and other minor details of history?

“No, neo-confederatism isn’t essentially about racism- it’s about anti-thinking tribalist romanticism of America’s most closed society in the face of mountains of real-world evidence as to the nature of this kind of culture.”

Yeah, as opposed to the PC hysterics in your typical university sociology department.

“Some leftists just will not face the reality of atrocities which occur in non-Western cultures, because it affronts a certain naive picture of the world which they wish to believe in disregard of all facts. Neo-Confederates do the same- but without any possibly equivalent excuse of ignorant idealism or good intentions.”

So leftists who gloss over clitoridectomies, honor killings, or, presumably, human sacrifice are merely misguided idealists while southerners who claim pride in their heritage while overlooking the brutality of slavery or the maliciousness of Jim Crow are sinister monsters.

“Why would anyone who believes in the free spirit and the creative original mind ever get involved with this kind of movement? What kind of mentality would you have to adopt in order to feel a deep, fundamental attachment to the legacy of Dixie? What kind of individualist could care this much about any traditional, inherited identity instead of who they might be and ought to be as an individual?”

What about all the supposed freethinking leftoids who idealize Third World tyrants like Castro or Mugabe? What about the leftoid obsession with identity politics?

“And of course, most neo-confederates are in fact racists, and everyone knows this. One obvious reason for this is the brazen fact that slavery and racism were defining structural features of antebellum Southern society, and that anyone who truly holds these evils in the proper horrified contempt would never desire to sanction a movement even partially infected by that kind of taint.”

Why is this any special sin as opposed to, say, Enlightened Liberal Christopher Hitchens’ support for aggressive war, or Black Liberal Charlie Rangel’s support for the draft, or racism-hating but drug war-loving Liberal Democrats Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer?

“In the long run the only cure for racism and other forms of prejudice is to learn to see people as choosing, thinking, independent, individuals. Neo-confederates revolt deeply against a broader American society with at least some respect for this “I” in the name of a particularly nasty “we”; ugly persecution of anyone who won’t go along with maintaining fake self-esteem which is the purpose of that “we” is just a consequence. Deeply racist societies are deeply racist because they are anti-individualist; anyone who tries to romanticise anti-individualist cultures while denying that racism has anything to do with it is either dreaming or just plain lying.”

This is a joke. Individualism is a dirty word to many leftoids and liberals. How are “neo-Confederates” any kind of special offenders?

“Then there’s the practical point: what do you think a revived Confederate States of America would mean for black people. gays and lesbians, women, non-Christians, etc. trapped in the South? An independent South would ban abortion and reinstate state persecution of homosexuals on the second day after independence. I doubt they’d re-establish slavery, but some how I doubt life would improve for human beings of the browner variety.”

What about Enlightened Liberal California with its huge prison industry and where the Prison Guards Union practically runs the state government? Somehow I doubt California’s prison system is filled with Capitalist Pigs and Reactionary Enemies of the Peoples’ Revolution. What about Enlightened Liberal New York with its Rockefeller drug laws? What about the Upholder of our Sacred Constitutional Rights US federal government with its massive police state the components of which are too numerous to list? What about the US empire and the mere million or two people it has killed in Iraq over the last couple decades?

“especially given that an independent South would be one ruled even more thoroughly ruled by the class-based old-boy networks who form the South’s real power structure.”

As opposed to the models of government with integrity that reign in the blue states and in Washington, D.C.?

“The only good thing I can imagine coming out this situation is that it might allow the rest of the United States to recover the institutions of the open society (might, being the key word; the South is far from the only thing devouring the soul of “the land of the free” right now). But it would not justify abandoning every women, queer, young-person, and non-white to the fate which would be in store for them behind the closed doors (or the iron curtain) of the Mason-Dixon line.”

Yes, it’s those damn southern hillbillies who are responsible for turning the federal government into the fascist monstrosity it’s become. And all this time I thought they were busy trying to find a job and feed themselves. And all those black city officials I see here in the capital of the old Confederacy are just an illusion, and the thriving gay counterculture that exists in my city is a figment of my imagination. And I guess it’s just the federal government and the Enlightened Example of the Yankee and West Coast Bolsheviks that keeps all those young female college students who run up and down my block in shorts and halter tops out of the burkhas and veils.

“Neo-confederates, in short, are not white hats. The principles of 1789 and 1968 just do not mix with the mythology of the Lost Cause.”

Yes, those great liberators and anti-authoritarians, the Jacobins and their favorite invention, the guillotine, and the Trotsky, Mao and Castro loving Paris rioters.

Isn’t it amazing that those who talk the loudest about “tolerance” have least amount of it? “Tolerance” Fascists are just the Moral Majority of the Left.

“1. “Immigration is class warfare!” Basically, mass immigration is a way for the rich to exploit the poor.

The problem is that keeping desperately poor people from working in the world’s largest economy is, itself, the worst economic exploitation around. Forcing people to scratch out a living in a rural Mexican village or in a war-torn hellhole like the Sudan is the worst sort of class warfare in existence. You can’t call yourself a friend of the workers if you’re stopping them from the richest job market in history.”

Well, first of all, I am not a universalist. Naturally, I am more concerned about the working class from which I come and the indigenous American working class to which I am most closely connected than I am with workers anywhere just as I am more concerned about my own circle of family, friends and peers than I am with “humanity” as a whole. Mass immigration is harmful to the indigenous American working class (of any color). That said, I’m all for the self-advancement of workers in the Sudan and Mexico, which is part of the reason why I’ve been a committed anti-imperialist my entire adult life. I want people in these places to be sovereign in their own homelands, communities and cultures and in control of their own economies and natural resources so that they may develop in their own way and at their own pace. Good luck to them.

“Libertarians say that, if the world is set to rights, there’s nothing wrong with the existence of the rich and the poor. And if the poor choose to work for the rich, that’s a private matter and no one else’s business. Preston nowhere mentions or addresses this argument, even though it’s the fundamental libertarian complaint against state interference in labor-management relations.”

This is such a naive view of political economy it’s barely worth discussing. I’ll simply say, “Joshua, read some Kevin Carson and then we can discuss this further.” You can start here: http://mutualist.org/id4.html

“But even as Preston laments the fate of the workers, he betrays them. Why else would he say, “There are going to be a lot of very wealthy people, and a lot of peons who are going to live in the barrios.” Why use the Spanish word? The reason is ugly but simple; Preston is saying, “I don’t want to live in a country full of Mexicans.” Fair enough, but why should his preferences get enacted into law? There’s nothing libertarian about that.”

I’d rather live in country full of Mexicans than in a country full of white yuppies and megachurch Jesus freaks. The bottom line is that if you move the Third World into the West, you will lower the overall quality of life in the West to Third World levels, rather than vice versa. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn made the argument that the effect of “free, universal and compulsory” education has been not to raise the educational standards of the stupid but to dumb down the smart. Immigration has a similar effect.

“(There also considerable market-oriented literature about the barrios as a creation of unjust legal systems, but that’s not a problem with immigration.)”

Indeed they are, and so are black ghettos.

The bulk of Joshua’s arguments concern a passage from my article he finds particularly objectionable:

“I’m in favor of private property, not just for individuals as the Lockeans are, but also for families (as illustrated by the law of inheritance), communities (“the commons”), property rooted in ancestral traditions (for instance, the recognition of the prerogative of indigenous peoples’ to their sacred burial grounds), the property of tribes and ethnic groups (their historical homelands), and of nations (their generations long established domain). However, I’m also in favor of alternative business models like cooperatives and works councils. Whatever the particular approach to property theory one adheres to, or whatever model of business/labor/economic organization one finds to be most optimal or just, it is unlikely that there can ever be a system of ownership, whether individual or collective, that places no barriers to entry whatsoever. Is an anarcho-leftist commune going to accept all comers, irrespective of beliefs, behavior or economic output? Republicans? Religious fundamentalists? Meat-eaters? Skinheads? And is enforcement of rules pertaining to immigration visas or border crossing inherently any more authoritarian than the enforcement of laws against trespassing or the restriction of entry to private facilities such as school campuses, shopping centers or office buildings? Both involve forcible expulsion of those uninvited persons who refuse to exit on their own initiative and not necessarily anything more.”

Says Joshua, in response to this passage:

“That this passage appears on a libertarian site is breathtaking, because Preston is implicitly arguing that the state is the representative of or embodiment of one of those listed groups. Wasn’t Preston just arguing about the awfulness of class warfare a few paragraphs beforehand, and now he’s arguing that the state is the embodiment of some rights-bearing group? He argues that the elites are using the state to create mass immigration, then argues that the state is the father of us all? Well, which is it?”

I’ve made no such argument at all. I’ve merely argued in favor of property rights beyond the merely individual level, not that the state is the embodiment of families, communities, indigenous peoples, ethnic groups or tribes or even nations. In fact, I regard the state as a parasite on all of these entities and institutions, including their property rights.

“But to answer his question, the difference between the state’s borders and the individual’s borders is “rights”. The state has no right to the borders because it is not a rights-bearing group or its representative. Keep as many folks off your property as you like, but you don’t get to tell me who I allow access. Preston’s argument is akin to an assault defendant saying that it’s perfectly okay to punch people in a boxing match.”

I regard rights as conventions rooted in historic tradition and experience, and relative to the particulars of specific cultures, and not as decrees from On High. Beyond that, I don’t trust the state to uphold “rights” of any kind. Down with the INS, all hail the Minutemen!

“Once again, the LRC folks flail about but can’t answer the serious libertarian argument at the heart of our open borders stance: who I allow onto my property, who I hire and fire, is not the business of anyone else, including the state. “

I would agree with this when it comes to individual property owners, small businesses, genuinely private associations, etc. I don’t agree when it comes to mass corporations and crony-capitalist institutions connected to the state. For instance, while I think private neighborhoods, private schools, private clubs, genuinely private businesses, etc. should be allowed to discriminate all they want, even on grounds liberals find taboo like race, gender, et al, I wouldn’t have a problem with a rule that said McDonald’s, Walmart, General Motors or Microsoft cannot simply refuse to hire blacks, or Mormons or gays simply because they are blacks, Mormons or gays. But I would also have no problem with a rule that Big Capital cannot displace indigenous workers out of desire to exploit immigrant labor. Corporate feudalism really isn’t my idea of liberty.

Beyond that, libertarianism is not the end-all of human existence. It’s not a religion or something that can answer all the world’s problems. I consider liberty to be the highest political value (as opposed to equality or throne and altar or the glory of the fatherland), but sectarian versions of libertarianism are hardly important enough to justify political, economic and cultural suicide, which is what will happen if we Westerners allow our societies to be overrun by immigration. That said, I very much favor standing with Third World nations against imperialism and exploitation by international capitalism. I favor practicing class solidarity with domestic workers, including immigrant workers, even illegals. For instance, I’m a big fan of Caesar Chavez. I favor practicing solidarity with all prisoners, even those on death row, and, yes, even those in immigrant detention camps.

I do not favor creating any new laws whatsoever for the purpose of curbing immigration. I’m simply for ending all state subsidies and entitlements that create incentives for immigration, ending birth citizenship (a privilege, not a right), decentralizing the naturalization process to the community level according to community standards, repealing laws prohibiting private discrimination, deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, forming citizen militias to patrol entry points, creating worker-run enterprises to discourage the employment of cheap immigrant labor, organizing boycotts of employers who do engage in such practices, and outright syndicalist seizure of state-connected industries who displace indigenous labor with immigrant labor.

There’s a such thing as a society becoming so “tolerant” that it leads to self-destruction. For instance, the Weimar Republic did not act to save itself even in the face of imminent Nazi or Communist seizure of power. The same thing is going on in Europe today with regards to unqualified Islamic immigration in the name of multiculturalist ideology. And in America, the indigenous working class is being sold out in the name of trendy liberal notions of “diversity”.